Voice impersonation : Acting or Mimicry?

[pawsplay]

If there were a GURPS 5e, I'd like Acting to get a rewrite. It's made to do a lot of heavy lifting, yet it doesn't have a lot of specific tasks listed in its description.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Refplace

I would say Acting to try and look relaxed and calm and am influence skill such as Fast Talk if you get caught to try and talk your way out of it.

If you're really not smuggling, you might use the Assuming a Persona rule to look like an honest traveler. Roll vs. one of Acting+5, (alternate skill)+3, or IQ vs. the customs agent's Detect Lies to avoid looking untrustworthy. Here (alternate skill) might be Merchant, for example, if you're a commercial traveler, or Savoir-Faire (High Society) if you're a jet setter.

If you ARE smuggling, I'd call it Acting vs. Detect Lies.

Now, if you have Honest Face, and you're a smuggler, you roll Acting at +1. But if you're not smuggling, then you simply don't have to roll; by the definition of the perk, the customs agents won't suspect you and won't pick you out to check.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by pawsplay

So do you think the Honest Face Perk is always used in a deceitful manner? That is, is it a Perk possessed only by those who are actually dishonest?

Most of the value of the Perk doesn't lie in the situational +1 to Acting. So, no.

If the GM calls for a roll against Acting to see how successful you are at "acting innocent", then pretty much by definition the character is being dishonest in that moment. Otherwise they'd just "be innocent", no roll required -- in which case Honest Face still helps the character out. There's just no die roll involved in the first place. But that one Acting roll doesn't define the character's overall ethical leaning, or likely or preferred tendencies ("those who are actually dishonest"), nor is having an "evil alignment" a prereq for buying the Perk.

If you want more of a defined mechanical benefit for the "actually honest", then you might allow the +1 bonus to apply to reaction rolls, but only in the case where that reaction roll is for assessing the character's trustworthiness. That way, every once in a while the bonus might push a 12 to a 13, and so that random cop is slightly more likely to let the innocent character walk away from a situation where it only seems like they might be suspect, but they have no evidence to hold them.

But it's only a Perk, so a general reaction bonus is too much (those generally run 5 CP per +1, not 1), as would be a laundry list of bonuses in Contests versus Body Language, Detect Lies, etc. If that's desired, it would be better to upgrade the trait to an Honest Face Talent. Perks often come with a +1 to a skill, but that's generally a single skill used in a specific subset of its usual uses, and not necessarily even in a common situation. The RAW version of the Perk seems about par for that course.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

If you want more of a defined mechanical benefit for the "actually honest", then you might allow the +1 bonus to apply to reaction rolls, but only in the case where that reaction roll is for assessing the character's trustworthiness. That way, every once in a while the bonus might push a 12 to a 13, and so that random cop is slightly more likely to let the innocent character walk away from a situation where it only seems like they might be suspect, but they have no evidence to hold them.

That may be less of a benefit than the existing interpretation grants. Checking the text, I see

People who don’t know you will tend to pick you as the one to confide in – or not to pick you, if they’re looking for a potential criminal or troublemaker. You won’t be spot-checked by customs agents and the like unless they have another reason to suspect you, or unless they’re truly choosing at random.

Your "they have no evidence to hold them" seems to exclude "unless they have another reason to suspect them." In that case, HF doesn't just give you +1 to a reaction roll; it says that the cop doesn't roll in the first place.

If anything, that strikes me as better.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by whswhs

That may be less of a benefit than the existing interpretation grants.

True enough. I invented an example off the top of my head to try to fit the question, but without checking to see if it was already covered. I also didn't mean for that example to be the only case where the mod would apply, but just wanted a concrete example of a roll that wasn't a skill check but that could also be narrowed down to Perk-ishly narrow situations.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Curmudgeon

Neither Acting nor Performance. Law, possibly with a specialty in Customs and Tariffs, seems the likeliest as the backing for "Hey, I'm not smuggling[,]" comes down to "See here, this is the definition of smuggling and these are the elements that comprise the offence. Note that the second element, here, the fifth element here, as well as the sixth element here, have not been met. Consequently as those are essential elements 9f the offence and they are not present, no offence has occurred."

If you're in a position for making that argument, you've failed to persuade people you're not smuggling at least once, probably a couple of times.

Also, you should have hired a lawyer instead of representing yourself.